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On the opposite side of this argument. I was there. I was shit in college but managed a degree and self taught programming. I was hustling hard to graduate and

On the opposite side of this argument. I was there. I was shit in college but managed a degree and self taught programming. I was hustling hard to graduate and convince someone to hire me as a programmer even though I had no degree. I was 23 at the time. If you are in this scenario, just you, no wife kids etc. What is wrong with working really hard on a problem? I loved the startup and it fit my perfect niche. I would grind 12 hours days, but also had lots of freedom. Remote work, unlimited days off etc. Sure at sometimes you get burnt out but you are a sponge soaking up everything you can. now i'm 28 with wife and kids, no overtime for me. I still work extremely hard and lazer focused, but i show up at 7:30-8am and leave at 4 everyday :p

toomuchtodo 8y ago
> What is wrong with working really hard on a problem? Because you're normalizing abusive workplace practices. Need I explain further? It's not right, it's not okay, and if you tolerate it, you do a disservice to your colleagues. Maybe you don't care, that's fine. But when you say "What's wrong?" I will point out that it is not to be commended or supported. If your employer encourages, supports, or allows this sort of behavior to exist, I hope you find yourself on the business end of a lawsuit.
- dnautics 8y ago
  It seems like what's wrong is if it's not telegraphed that this is expected beforehand. We're all adults here and should be able to make informed decisions about how we want to live. Some of us want a lot of pressure and to not sit around bored wondering what to do with our lives. When I was in grad school, 100 hour weeks and working 100 days straight was the norm. Also I made 25k a year. And I loved it, because I loved doing science and I got to be paid to do what I loved. And also, it's maybe worth mentioning that your experiments don't give a damn about labor laws. There really are some important societally beneficial things that simply won't get done if there aren't crazy fuckers like me around (not necessarily the projects I happened to work on, they all turned out to be crap) Honestly what made me mad was that there were a lot of kids who got out of college, and went to grad school because they didn't know what to do next and nobody told them how crazy grad school was. These jokers depressed the asking price for a grad school salary.
goobynight 8y ago
It's "pissing in the pool" for the rest of us. I know it feels validated internally because it worked out for you though. Even when I did a startup, I held pretty normal hours. Working on someone else's problem to make them rich is silly to me. I think it's something that you either get or you don't. I don't plan to convince you to change sides, but I'd 100% of the time rather spend hours 8 or 9 through 12 working on my own hard problems. They're easy to create. I definitely had more responsibility, did more coding, and felt more energy at a startup than a big corp though. Pay and nearly everything else was shit in comparison. If someone did 10-12 hour regularly on my current team, we'd be pissed. It would set a new normal and management would think they could start replacing people until they get 10 of those guys that are willing to sit here half the day.
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  Wait, I enjoy my job, want to write code and get lost in my work and you think that’s pissing in the pool? I know some people at work that sort of have your mindset. I think it’s the worst. Not only do they not want to help someone who’s passionate you now make me suspect they’re incentivized to undermine hard workers as well, since they make you look bad. Fine, take it easy at work, I don’t care. Just don’t make it harder for people who are trying to get work done.
  - akoumis 8y ago
    You are being exploited. Do you get compensated 1.5x your base for all those 12 hour work days?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - landryraccoon 8y ago
      Making multiples of what the median American household makes, sitting in front of a computer, in an air conditioned office full of free food is being exploited? I'm sure a lot of American workers are being exploited but I'm not.
ghaff 8y ago
I'm on team work/life balance but, in this case, I agree. First job out of school I had an engineering job (not software) in the oil business. Spent lots of time living in shipyards and offshore. Long days. Etc. But I had a lot of responsibility. Was sort of thrown in the deep end with respect to a lot of things. It was a great experience out of school and, in retrospect, was absolutely the right job choice relative to my other options. Would I have wanted to have done it long-term? (I left after 3 years to get another degree.) No way.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

> What is wrong with working really hard on a problem? Because you're normalizing abusive workplace practices. Need I explain further? It's not right, it's not okay, and if you tolerate it, you do a disservice to your colleagues. Maybe you don't care, that's fine. But when you say "What's wrong?" I will point out that it is not to be commended or supported. If your employer encourages, supports, or allows this sort of behavior to exist, I hope you find yourself on the business end of a lawsuit.

dnautics 8y ago
It seems like what's wrong is if it's not telegraphed that this is expected beforehand. We're all adults here and should be able to make informed decisions about how we want to live. Some of us want a lot of pressure and to not sit around bored wondering what to do with our lives. When I was in grad school, 100 hour weeks and working 100 days straight was the norm. Also I made 25k a year. And I loved it, because I loved doing science and I got to be paid to do what I loved. And also, it's maybe worth mentioning that your experiments don't give a damn about labor laws. There really are some important societally beneficial things that simply won't get done if there aren't crazy fuckers like me around (not necessarily the projects I happened to work on, they all turned out to be crap) Honestly what made me mad was that there were a lot of kids who got out of college, and went to grad school because they didn't know what to do next and nobody told them how crazy grad school was. These jokers depressed the asking price for a grad school salary.

goobynight 8y ago

It's "pissing in the pool" for the rest of us. I know it feels validated internally because it worked out for you though. Even when I did a startup, I held pretty normal hours. Working on someone else's problem to make them rich is silly to me. I think it's something that you either get or you don't. I don't plan to convince you to change sides, but I'd 100% of the time rather spend hours 8 or 9 through 12 working on my own hard problems. They're easy to create. I definitely had more responsibility, did more coding, and felt more energy at a startup than a big corp though. Pay and nearly everything else was shit in comparison. If someone did 10-12 hour regularly on my current team, we'd be pissed. It would set a new normal and management would think they could start replacing people until they get 10 of those guys that are willing to sit here half the day.

landryraccoon 8y ago
Wait, I enjoy my job, want to write code and get lost in my work and you think that’s pissing in the pool? I know some people at work that sort of have your mindset. I think it’s the worst. Not only do they not want to help someone who’s passionate you now make me suspect they’re incentivized to undermine hard workers as well, since they make you look bad. Fine, take it easy at work, I don’t care. Just don’t make it harder for people who are trying to get work done.
- akoumis 8y ago
  You are being exploited. Do you get compensated 1.5x your base for all those 12 hour work days?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - landryraccoon 8y ago
    Making multiples of what the median American household makes, sitting in front of a computer, in an air conditioned office full of free food is being exploited? I'm sure a lot of American workers are being exploited but I'm not.

ghaff 8y ago

I'm on team work/life balance but, in this case, I agree. First job out of school I had an engineering job (not software) in the oil business. Spent lots of time living in shipyards and offshore. Long days. Etc. But I had a lot of responsibility. Was sort of thrown in the deep end with respect to a lot of things. It was a great experience out of school and, in retrospect, was absolutely the right job choice relative to my other options. Would I have wanted to have done it long-term? (I left after 3 years to get another degree.) No way.